Since He Was Five
by Amber Cartahall
Summary: An overlook on Logan's life since he was five. Angst galore! Do not read if you like happy endings and fluff, this is dark.


Disclaimer: Poor Logan. I dun own him, or anyone in the VM universe.

* * *

When he is five, his father takes him to a (crap) movie premiere for his birthday. On the way back he spills chocolate ice-cream on his jeans, and without even looking backwards, his father gives him a black eye.

That was the first time, and he was the only one there. Being alone was better when you hadn't had a taste of real friendship first. When his mother got home from her movie shoot a week later, he told her what had happened, but she didn't believe him until the next day his father smashed him into a wall for walking with the scissors the wrong way up.

He is six when he first thinks that he should go to the police about it, because he'd had to have surgery for internal bleeding his father had given him after he accidentally smashed a vase while playing football with his friends from summer camp. He sneaks out of the house as soon as his nanny dumps him in his room, nimbly traversing the tree outside his window that he has "fallen out of" ten times already. As soon as his feet touched the grass, he scampers out and walks along to the corner shop that his father had forbidden him from going to because it is filled with "the scum of the earth", and he therefore visits as often as possible. He enters the shop and walks up to the counter.

"How can I contact the police?"

The shopkeeper shows him how to dial 911, so he thanks the man and walks home, where he is greeted by an extremely angry nanny, who thankfully keeps the information of his little adventure from his father. Later that night, he creeps downstairs and dials 911.

"Which do you need, police, ambulance, or the fire service?"

He chooses police, but when the policeman who answers him hears the voice of a six-year-old, the officer doesn't even give him a chance to finish his sentence.

"Look, kid, I'm tired of these prank calls."

The policeman then proceeds to rant about kids these days and how older siblings were teaching the younger ones to be disrespectful to their elders and betters, then hangs up on him, telling him that the police has some 'real emergencies' to get to.

He makes it a full week without getting hit after that, knowing that the authorities weren't there to help him, that if policemen (who in his opinion, were the coolest kind of people) didn't believe him, no one would.

When he is seven, he tries to kill himself, but doesn't drink enough bleach to actually kill him. His fathers manages to pass it off as childish curiosity, but after he has had his stomach pumped and spends a week in bed, his father only beats him every few days now – but that only lasts for a fortnight, and soon they're back to their usual pattern. He discovers that life has no easy way out.

When he is eight, three of his best friends all die in a car pile-up on the way to his parent's Christmas party, and he doesn't cry then, because he is eight and doesn't really understand the concept of 'dead', and because for two weeks his mother manages to fool him that they are on holiday in the Caribbean. He chooses to keep believing that, and probably has a tiny bit of hope that if he goes there, even now, he'll find them and his life will rewind to when he was four and everything was right in the world.

When he is nine, his mother has a baby. It's probably not his father's and his father knows that, so Aaron hits the baby again and again when she cries. Aaron bought off the doctors to say his little sister died of two collapsed lungs - which she did. That's really when he begins to call his father 'Aaron' or 'daddy dearest', and it turns out he has a knack for sarcasm.

Aaron beats him more for that.

When he is twelve his family moves to Neptune, where his best friend Duncan from summer camp lives. He is introduced to Duncan's hot sister at a soccer game, and blanches when he is told her name.

His little sister's name was Lilly.

He also meets Veronica, who is cute but not his type, and Duncan has a crush on her anyway. The four quickly become "best friends forever" and at the time they actually believe it.

When he is fourteen, he decides that he is going to die first out of the four. Veronica and Duncan are going to live to be 100 together, then die in each other's arms. Lilly is going to be a star and live her life vivaciously and he is going to die when he does something particularly stupid and Aaron kills him in a blind rage.

He thought it would almost be worth it if it got Aaron sent to jail.

When he is fifteen, Lilly finds out about Aaron. She makes it better, somehow managing to soothe his burning back and abdomen with her butterfly fingers and stomp on his heart all at once. She wouldn't speak to Duncan for a full three days when she found out her brother already knew, but he managed to get her to promise not to do or say anything. Veronica, sweet little naive Veronica, still had no idea. No one else paid close enough attention to his behavior to notice anyway.

When he is fifteen years, seven months, and 21 days old, Lilly dies and the world as he knows it is ripped apart at it's already shaky seams. Duncan goes catatonic and Veronica isn't Veronica anymore, she is a sassy bitch who he could love if Lilly's flames hadn't just been smothered. The last thing he said to his (ex)girlfriend before she was offed was probably "Screw you, hypocritical bitch!" or some other profanity. He doesn't cry, he screams and throws things and attacks walls with fists and therapists with words. He attempts to swallow the pills he knows will kill him (if four make his mother pass out, eight will surely be fatal) at least ten times, but he is full to the brim with tears that he cannot shed and he knows from watching his mother that pills don't make things go away. His already bright flame turns into a wildfire, out of control, almost as if Lilly's fire had been sucked into him the moment the ashtray hit her skull - he knows he is destroying himself and everything in his path, but he can't find the breath to care.

When he is sixteen his mother kills herself. He won't believe it at first, and hires Veronica to find her. He falls asleep every night holding onto the lighter Lynn left as if it the only lifeline he now has. Which it is.

And then Trina is wearing his mother's hat and using her credit cards and his lungs fight for air as they've only ever done before he was five. He barely even feels the poisoned barb she throws at him, merely watching as Veronica flinches. He suspects he'll feel differently in the morning, but right now he just doesn't care.

Lilly (both of them) was dead and Duncan was as good as, and now Veronica hated him, hated the world. And his mother, the last person he felt could actually love him without running as fast as she could in the opposite direction, had offed herself without bothering to ask him if he wanted to come. He was the last one left, and the last one left curled up like a leaf in autumn into his friend-turned-archenemy's arms and cried real, wet tears for the first time since he was five years old.


End file.
